


This Test is Not a Test

by FullMetamorphosis



Series: The Galaxy Shattering Around Us [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Academy setting, Artifacts, Backstory, Choking, Guns, Imperial Intelligence, Other, Pre-Story, Threatening, darth arsono, etsuko kamaneva, ji-yeong lyanther, miroslav ivanov - Freeform, school setting, test
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 05:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12977244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullMetamorphosis/pseuds/FullMetamorphosis
Summary: The Academy for Imperial Intelligence tests in different ways, not nearly as pen-and-paper as one would think, but in ways that only the most cunning of spies would ever notice. Miroslav and Ji-Yeong, of course, notice. The only trouble is when they notice too much to take back.





	This Test is Not a Test

**Author's Note:**

> Got some of that good ol' backstory for my characters Ji-Yeong Lyanther and Miroslav Ivanov, back in their academy days. Sort of a prelude to some of the stuff that begins happening to them later on in their stories, especially for Ji-Yeong.
> 
> Oh, and there's Darth Arsono too, who is an interesting character all of her own.
> 
> Some of the best-kept secrets are hidden in plain sight. Or are they?
> 
> \- consort-to-the-emperor (tumblr)

There’s an official-looking package sitting on the instructor’s desk. Could’ve been anything, Miroslav thinks, even something no mind was needed for, but it’s a beacon. He was smart enough to think of it as a challenge, to expect it as a test - after all, this place was full of tests, the Academy  _ built _ to test and test and excise and test and build only the finest of officers, the wittiest of spies.

 

(There was a reason so many potential recruits were dropped after the first week. If you couldn’t recognize the surveillance devices in your own room the first few days you slept there, then you were of no use. (Miroslav caught his the moment he stepped into his residence.))

 

Miroslav could recognize a test when he saw one. He was the top of his class, smarter than most, and if this was a chance to solidify that position, he’d take it.

 

The lecture drones on and on, the professor never sparing a single look for the file sitting on his desk, and as he lectures Miroslav takes the time to lean back and glance to the woman sitting several seats down from his own. Of course she’s taking detailed notes, hair tucked behind her ear all except for the errant curl that slips along her cheek, nearly shielding her vibrant blue eyes, failing to hide the symbol that had been tattooed along her forehead at birth . . . she glances back to him, penned hand never stalling, and he knows they’re thinking the same thing.

 

_ The package _ .

 

He’d left only one surveillance device on in his room, the wiretap he usually toyed with or talked to when he had a question, or else wanted to play with whomever had to listen on the other end. But the girl, his best friend, she’d removed every device in her room, the camera and the wiretap and the radar. She was smart, just like him. And it’d be  _ her _ room they’d stop in tonight, to talk this over.

 

_ Get the package. We’ll meet in your room. And then we’ll chase after whatever it has on the inside _ .

 

They need no words to communicate, for she just blinks at him, and goes back to taking her precise notes.

 

***

 

The professor made it easy. He walked right out of the room at the end of class, leaving the file on his desk completely exposed. He doesn’t even worry about shielding his actions as he leaves; the file is swiped up, hidden under his coat, and he makes a beeline for her room. By the time he gets there, she’s waiting for him, brow arched and mouth scowling.

 

“Please tell me somebody else tried to take it,” she says. He rolls his eyes and slips into her room, not bothering to speak until he hears the lock on her door click.

 

“Nope. Nobody even noticed that I took it, Ji-Yeong. It was pretty stupid,” he answers as he pulls the file free, and hands it to her. “And the prof skedaddled out of there pretty quick. I bet he meant it for somebody else-”

 

“-except that nobody bothers to pay attention to these tests. Let’s take a look.”

 

They sit down on the edge of her bed and open the file together. They recognize the first pages immediately - official paperwork they had to look at all the time, though Ji Yeong pays careful attention to it, as she always does - and then they get to the interesting parts. A page of instructions, and a map.

 

“Looks like it’s in a part of the swamp,” Ji Yeong says as she passes the papers to him and gets up. “Let me grab my almanac of Dromund Kaas.”

 

“You know, an online server would be more accurate,” Miroslav points out.

 

“Yeah, but I don’t like taking chances. Everybody keeps trying to slice into my holopad,” she says. She comes back with her almanac, overflowing with notes and other files. She opens it to the swamp, and he lays the map overtop of it.

 

“Yep, right around the waterfalls,” he says, circling the area on the map. “What do the instructions say?”

 

“Something about a series of stones, and an order to press them in. My guess is there’s a secret cave, something pretty ancient, hiding behind the falls. We’re gonna get wet if we go looking for this, Miro.”

 

“Then we bring wetsuits. You still have yours from when we took that trip to Manaan?”

 

“The one we almost got expelled over? Yeah, I still have it. And it’s still in good condition, given we barely got any time in the water.”

 

Miroslav cracks a grin. “To be fair, I wasn’t the one in charge of blocking Republic signals.”

 

“Miroslav, I will gut you right here, I swear to the gods.”

 

“Save it. We have a mission. Hopefully one that ends with a nice big mark checked into our school systems.”

 

***

 

It’s dark by the time they make it to the falls, both of them covered from head to toe in their wetsuits, hair tucked away and only eyes visible to one another. The area is, in essence, a massive lake, into which several falls emptied. Behind some of the waterfals, rocky platforms broke through the lake, most likely slippery but hiding secrets that they were intent on finding. Heads above water, and feet kicking madly, Miroslav watches as Ji Yeong carefully pulls out the map and instructions, and reads them above their heads.

 

“That one,” she murmers, as if they could be overheard here of all places, miles away from the academy and even farther from any society that would have interest in their mission. She points to a smaller waterfall, broken up and hiding a larger platform, hidden nearly from sight. Miroslav nods, and they both swim towards it, careful to stay quiet.

 

He lets Ji Yeong work on the code; he keeps watch, rifle in his hands, eyes scanning the shoreline and the depths of the water for any sign of hostile life. Even in the darkest night on planet,  _ anything _ could be lurking, and he didn’t want to take the chance that any creature could come after them. Or, well, any other students. They were lucky to find an underwater tunnel that led to this place, but it wasn’t exactly a secret, at least until now.

 

He hears the shift that means something’s happened, and Miroslav glances over to see a part of the rock wall slide open, creating a hole big enough for somebody to crawl in. Ji Yeong points to it, nods, and Miroslav keeps his guard up a little longer for her to get in before following her into the space.

 

It’s a crawlspace for some time, barely large enough for his frame (wide shoulders and all), but soon it opens up, bigger and bigger, until he finds room to stand. It’s a large cave system, at least from the looks of it, and Ji Yeong’s waiting for him, pulling her wild hair free of its hood. “That was surprisingly easy,” she notes, “Makes it hard to believe anything could still be here and not found long ago.”

 

“But who comes here? Trainees looking for some time away from the monitors and cameras of the academy? Nobody’s seriously going to go looking for some kind of cave like this.”

 

“Unless they’re instructed to,” she points out. She looks back to the path of the cave. “Seems pretty untouched though. Formations built up over lots of years. Rubble underfoot; nobody’s stepped in here for probably millennia, if ever.”

 

“Which begs the question how anybody knew to look for this place.”

 

“Sith,” she says simply. She looks back down to the map in her hands. “Shouldn’t be far. Let’s get moving.”

 

Light formations on the walls, centuries old, light the way. The two of them go quietly, footsteps careful but sure, and though Miroslav doesn’t have the map, he trusts Ji Yeong’s sense of direction, leading him through forks in the path and under overhangs of rock, through several more crawl spaces, farther and farther until he felt completely turned around. He thinks it’ll never end, until they hit one more crawl space, and she leads him through it to stand up in a wide room, lit entirely by the old formations of light, with an altar in the middle and stone hands raising up from the top.

 

“Gods,” she says, looking at it all, eyes looking wide as they ever did. Miroslav steps alongside her, not so much looking at the room as he does at her face, her strange eyes and her pale skin and the surprised blush that rises high on her cheeks. Absentmindedly, he reaches for and takes her hand.

 

Ji Yeong breaks her eyes from the sight and looks down at her hands. “Miroslav?”

 

“Sorry,” he answers, but he doesn’t move, and her hand holds onto his a little tighter. They both look to, and approach, the altar in the centre of the room.

 

The hands look worn, cut away by time, though their carving is solid, done by expert craftsmen. They mirror each other, both reaching up to the ceiling and cupped around an invisible object, or like they were praying up to the gods themselves.

 

Each finger wore a ring. All identical, wrought from dark stone, with careful lines bored into each one matching the alphabet and language of the Sith. Miroslav can’t read it, isn’t sure if it’s even a dialect that would be legible to any Sith living today, but it doesn’t seem to bother Ji Yeong, either. She’s more focused on the altar itself.

 

“It doesn’t seem rigged or anything,” she says, “But it looks like a Sith’s place, or something. There could be something in the Force guarding this place, but we’d never know.”

 

“Something’s definitely unnatural about this place, for sure,” Miroslav adds, “But neither of us are Force-sensitive. So, do we go back and find somebody sensitive?”

 

Ji-Yeong shakes her head. She doesn’t move her vision, now, from the rings. “I don’t think this is a mission that’s meant to be for force-sensitives. Otherwise that file would’ve been left for somebody on Korriban.”

 

“Our professor isn’t Force-sensitive, is he?” Miroslav asks. He gets no answer. He reaches out with his free hand and touches one of the rings. “It’s warm. Like it’s being worn by real, living hands.”

 

“Well, don’t touch them! Are you on the Dark Council or something?! That could hurt you,” she reaches and grabs his wrist with her own free hand. “Miroslav, please don’t be an idiot.”

 

“Well,  _ somebody _ has to grab one,” he insists. “This is what we came here for, isn’t it?”

 

“But there have to be easier ways to get them off,” she points out, “Without trying with your bare hands.”

 

“Ji, we have minimal supplies with us right now. What do  _ you _ recommend?”

 

Her brow draws together in thought. He takes the moment of her distraction to firmly grasp one of the rings, and yank it off of its mannequin hand.

 

Ji-Yeong’s eyes go wide, and her hand around his wrist tightens. “Mirosla-!”

 

His hand suddenly goes  _ hot _ . His fingertips feel like they’re burning, sizzling with some kind of energy. He jerks, and grabs at Ji-Yeong’s hand. “What in the  _ hell _ -!”

 

The feeling stops. The ring is pinned between his palm and Ji-Yeong’s, still warm but no longer burning like it did before. Ji-Yeong looks just as shocked as he feels, looking at their intertwined fingers, but then her brow draws and she opens her mouth, ready to chastise.

 

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?!” he cuts her off, pulling his hand free and holding the ring out in his palm. “It’s not  _ burning _ anymore, or whatever that was - it’s just a normal ring. Or something. I don’t know what that was, maybe a deterrant?”

 

“Of all the  _ dumbass things _ -” Ji-Yeong starts, only to pluck the ring out of his hand and study it. “Miroslav, you’re an idiot. Again. But for the record, you did something to it, because it shrunk.”

 

“Did it?” he asks. He looks back to the stone hands. Its fingers are definitely large, larger than his at least, but when he looks down to the ring he can tell. It’s just a little smaller. It looks like it might fit his own hand.

 

Ji-Yeong must recognize the look in his eyes. “Do  _ not _ try to put that on your hand, or I swear-”

 

“Well, do the files say anything about what these are?” he asks. She huffs, but pulls the files free of her wetsuit. He can’t help but notice that despite how watertight the suits are supposed to be, the files are wrinkled, and just a little damp.

 

“I don’t remember seeing anything,” she says as she pulls the papers free, “But I think it said something about force-bound objects, or something like that. I can only assume these objects are some kind of set to each other, or something, but-  _ oh god dammit _ ,” she curses as the papers tear in her hands, clearly too wet to be salvageable. “Wet hands. The lettering is practically illegible as it stands.”

 

“Force-bound, huh? So . . .” he looks back to them. “Does that mean that they’re linked, or something?”

 

“I have no idea,” she finally says, tucking what remained of the files back into her wetsuit, “But my  _ guess _ is that they’re all connected, perhaps to each other or to a point of origin. And from what I gathered from the files, they want us to bring these back - so I guess we’re taking all of them,” she adds, looking with a grimace back to the rings. “I’m not looking forward to whatever the hell  _ that _ was again.”

 

“Hey. I’ll carry them, if it bugs you that much,” he points out, “But I don’t think they’re harmful. Just some cool artifacts or whatever.”

 

“So then what do we do with them?” she asks as she reaches over and pulls a ring free. She shudders at the sensation, but reaches over and plucks another one. Miroslav can tell, the rings are fitting to the size of her fingers, though she only keeps them in her fist. “I assume we turn them in to the professor?”

 

“I figure,” he says. He grabs another ring and pushes both into his pocket. “Grab the rest of them. Maybe you keep one, and I’ll keep the other seven? I bet they do some interesting things, if they’re really force-bound.”

 

“We can only see. Maybe the professor will have more info,” Ji-Yeong says. She thrusts the rest of the rings to Miroslav, and looks back to the entrance with a sigh. “It’s getting late. We’ll tell the professor after class tomorrow what we found, and see what we get rewarded with. If . . . if there’s a reward for this.”

 

The tone of her voice has changed, and Miroslav wonders why - at least until he looks back to the altar, and the space around them. It really  _ does _ look like a place that hasn’t been touched in years. Like it hasn’t been explored in centuries, even longer. And that’s when it hits him - this isn’t like a typical test. It’s not a normal assignment. This . . . this would’ve never been something left out for students. Not something like this, even if it was left in plain sight for them.

 

He looks back to Ji-Yeong. Her eyes are glimmering with familiar corruption - corruption from a past manipulated, with consequences driven too far home. They’re nearly orange. The hand he was holding, he releases.

 

“You don’t think . . .” he starts. She looks back to him, sudden and startled, but ultimately looks back to the floor. Her hands reach to play with the single ring she’d kept, fiddling with it between her fingers - until she pushes in onto her left hand, until it’s snug with her lower knuckle.

 

“We’ll give our excuses tomorrow,” she says. “And hope they give us a promotion instead of . . . instead of a punishment.”

 

***

 

He can hardly sit still. Even in the lecture seats high above the professor’s floor, in good sight and good hearing, he can’t pay attention, shifting in his seat and absentmindedly playing with the ring he’d slipped on under his glove. It’s hidden like this, and nobody would look twice - but it makes him nervous. Nervous, thinking he has something illicit hidden, like he’d done a wrong when he’d only been taking all the instincts of a good spy.

 

Ji-Yeong seems to feel the same way. He looks over to her, but she’s not taking notes either, instead sitting back in her seat and nearly sinking into it with nerves. Her fingers fold together, teasing around her own obsidian ring, and her nails look worn, like she’d been biting them again. He wants to reach out and take her hand again  - wants to reassure her - but it’d give too much away, when already people had been staring at them today, muttering questions around and about them. He restrains himself . . . but only barely.

 

It’s another hour left of this. Another hour . . . and then the awkward questions. The admittance of guilt, and then silently hoping that there would be no punishment-

 

Something in the room has changed.

 

He realizes it with a start. Everybody is quiet. Faces are turning, each looking to one another, and the professor is silent, eyes wide, looking towards his desk and then the door. And then the feeling  _ really _ hits, the anxiety, the dropping of his stomach and the cold sting working down his spine. It’s unnatural. He looks to Ji-Yeong, who seems even paler than normal, but they both look down to the professor, who’s nearly sweating now, eyes to the door-

 

_ Slam _ .

 

The doors fly in, and a woman is waltzing in, dressed in black and eyes covering her- her  _ face _ , blinking across her collar and down her arms-

 

_ Sith. Darth. _

 

“ _ What have you done with them?! _ ”

 

A blast goes around the room, and people scream as papers and pens go flying, as the professor’s desk shoots across the room and into the other wall. The professor stumbles back, hands flying up in defense, but nothing can seem to protect him as the woman raises her hand, and the professor is hoisted into the air-

 

“ _ What have you done with my artifacts?!” _

 

Miroslav starts as he takes her in - a tall woman,  _ tall _ as she is pale, with bloody red hair cascading around her shoulders and down half the length of her dark cape, wide as her voluminous skirts in crepe and nighttime. Every one of her mutant eyes - more than he can count - is a fierce red, all glaring and matching the snarling lines of her mouth, the tight knuckles of her left hand curled tightly around the hilt of a lightsaber-

 

The professor chokes. “D-  _ Darth Arsono _ -”

 

“Don’t attempt to placate me,  _ worm _ . Serfs like you could never attempt to please a  _ queen _ ,” she hisses, chin held high. She holds the whole room with her stature, collects all of the shouts and murmurs with each dizzying eye on every student. She steps closer to the professor, glaring at him with emnity as she releases her force choke and watches him drop to the ground. “ _ Tell me. _ I know you had your orders, I know Imperial Intelligence was sending you for those artifacts first, and I don’t give a  _ damn _ . I am a queen. How  _ dare _ you interfere with my matters-”

 

“I-I don’t have them,” the professor coughs. He grabs at his throat and looks up at the woman with wide, fearful eyes. “My files, they disappeared- don’t know where to-”

 

“I’ve heard better lies from  _ pigs _ ,” she spits out. She smacks him across the face, so hard that even from up in the nosebleed of the room Miroslav can see blood spilling from the professor’s nose. “You’re a poor liar, a very  _ very _ poor liar, Informer Seven. I saw footprints in that cavern, I saw the artifacts missing from the altar - tell me, did you think the Dark Council would let this slide? Did you really think you and your Keeper wouldn’t be punished for this- this  _ treachery _ ?”

 

“M-My lord!” he stammers out louder, nearly begging now. “My files just  _ disappeared _ , I never opened them! I have no idea where they went, I never saw them, I hadn’t had the time to even properly  _ read _ them before they disappeared-!”

 

“ _ Your lies are useless _ ,” she hisses, the professor gasps, tossed into the air again suspended on an invisible hand, grappling and choking as she squeezes the life dry from him. “ _ You’ll be punished for betraying me, for betraying a queen of my stature-! _ ”

 

There’s a  _ click _ right beside his head. Darth Arsono looks up at the same time he does.

 

_ Ji-Yeong has her rifle aimed right at the lord’s head _ .

 

_ You idiot! _ , he thinks, frozen as he watches her, at her once-again corrupted eyes glaring at and focusing on the darth who didn’t belong,  _ seriously didn’t belong _ in that room. A Darth who didn’t belong in that  _ academy _ , let alone near future agents. Everybody knew who had eyes over Imperial Intelligence - Darth Jadus - but for another darth to come stomping in, and ready to kill-

 

And now Ji-Yeong was pointing her rifle at her. A senior student, months from graduating, and she was ready to  _ kill _ .

 

He wants to scream at her, wants to tell her to  _ stop it, you can’t! You’ll get killed, and what will I do without you?! _ \- and Miroslav snaps back to the woman holding their professor hostage, and he realizes that all of that woman’s attention, all of the Darth’s gaze, was on his best friend.

 

The lord cocks her head to one side, as if appraising her. Her eyes narrow, suspicious, and her lips turn down into a frown. A cold breeze sweeps through the room, one clearly manufactured, but neither of them move, all gazes focused on them.

 

Watching.

 

Waiting.

 

Anticipating.

 

And then the professor crashes to the floor, grabbing at his throat, gasping for air.

 

Ji-Yeong lowers her rifle, seemingly satisfied, but Miroslav’s mind is still screaming, telling her to  _ run, you fool, before the fucking dark lord tries to gut you in front of us all _ , but Darth Arsono seems to lose interest, if that’s what it is. She only stares a moment longer, eyes still narrowed, and he wonders for a second if her gaze lands on  _ him _ \- and then she turns away.

 

“Take this as a warning, Informer Seven - and don’t think I won’t find evidence of your treachery firsthand. I’m smarter than any of you think, and I can pull the strings to your demise faster than you’ll even know,” she looks to the door, to where a young woman with blonde hair stood, assumably her apprentice. “Kisara, we’re leaving. Ready our systems on the ship to message Darth Marr with this news as soon as we reach airspace-”

 

“ _ Don’t _ try to kill our professor again.”

 

It’s Ji-Yeong. Miroslav can’t turn to look at her, and neither does the dark lord. But even still, the room freezes with tension, holds its breath…

 

“...you’ll be of  _ great _ attention to me someday, Ji-Yeong Lyanther. ...but do me a favor, and don’t you  _ dare _ pull a stunt like that again, lest you lose your head.”

 

Dark Arsono sweeps out of the room, followed by her apprentice. The whole room seems to release its breath, as the professor stumbles up, pushes himself back to his feet with hands braced on the corner of his desk.

 

“Class,” he says with a cough, “Is dismissed. Until further notice. Ji-Yeong, meet me in my office  _ immediately _ .”

 

***

 

He can’t sit still. Miroslav broke into Ji-Yeong’s room for not the first time, hoping to wait, but he can’t keep himself from pacing, and from biting at his lip and tugging at his hair until his scalp starts to hurt. He can only imagine what kind of trouble she must be getting in - pointing a gun at a member of the Dark Council? And at a member with seniority? He didn’t know much about Darth Arsono, hardly knew why it was  _ her _ getting so riled up, but he certainly recognized her name, and remembered her status. She was one of the oldest, if not  _ the _ oldest, of the Dark Council. She looked barely past her mid-twenties, but she had to be over a century old. She was terrifying, and not just for her corruption.

 

And Ji-Yeong, his best friend, pointed a  _ gun _ at her. He’s not sure when she got a death wish, but that was-

 

He hears the doorknob turn. Miroslav turns on his heel and sees the door open to her face, tired and worn, but  _ alive _ .

 

“What the hell were you  _ thinking _ ?!” he immediately starts, not waiting for the door to close before he grabs her by the arms and yanks her against him in a tight hold. “You scared the ever-loving shit out of me!”

 

“I scared everybody,” she says dully. He pulls back and glares.

 

“You could’ve gotten  _ killed _ !”

 

“She almost killed the professor.”

 

“That doesn’t  _ mean _ -”

 

He pulls back and puts his face in his hands. He’s shaking - he can realize that now, he’s  _ shaking _ , both relieved and furious at once, with her standing there in one piece. She takes him by the arm, casually, and leads him to sit down on the bed.

 

“You don’t need to worry, Miroslav,” she says, softly. “I’m sorry for scaring you. But I had to take action - and it was worth it, in the end, so you don’t need to worry.”

 

“What happened? With the professor, and . . . and that Darth Arsono.”

 

“Well, Darth Arsono skimmed my thoughts. I could feel it. And she learned a few things. One - we took the files and the artifacts. That pissed her off, but then she found the second thing, which was that we were planning on telling the professor what happened. And then-” she stops, as if uncertain. “I think she realized that . . . that I wasn’t putting up my gun because I wanted to  _ kill her _ , but because I wanted to  _ save him _ . Apparently there was a distinction. Anyways, that was when she let him go. And then she let go of my mind. When she said that I had her attention, I was honestly a little surprised . . . but she didn’t seem malicious. At least not to me.”

 

He lowers his hands to his lap and fists them. “She tried to kill-!”

 

“Yes, but she didn’t try to kill  _ me _ . She didn’t even retaliate. I don’t know what her deal was, but apparently that was unusual. The professor told me, very sternly, how lucky I was.”

 

“And did you tell him about the artifacts?”

 

“What choice did I have? I told him. And he said he’d be in touch with Imperial Intelligence about it, and that he would try to ensure that I didn’t get hit with punishments, since I did save his life and all - but that was it. He asked for the ring I had, so they could study it, but I didn’t get in trouble.”

 

Miroslav scowls. “That’s pretty lucky, given he nearly died over them.”

 

“Yeah. That was scary, alright. I just acted on impulse. Maybe training’s gotten to me or something.”

 

“You said he took your other ring,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out one of the ones they’d taken. “Here. They might come in handy.”

 

“They might, indeed,” Ji-Yeong takes it and puts it on her finger again. “He said that what the Sith wrote about them, back then, were that they were meant to help force-nulls trace each other, within a group. Really helpful for agents like us, who would work in a unit, but right now Imperial Intelligence doesn’t know how to use them, so they’re sort of worthless. I imagine they’ll be looking at us now to see how they work, but who knows? This sort of thing is something they’ll put off for years.”

 

“So until then,” he says, looking down at his own ring, “They’re ours.”

 

“Right,” she pauses, and looks down into her lap in thought. “You know, I could sense you. Pacing up here, I mean. I could feel it when I was fiddling with that ring. It wasn’t nearly as clear as when we were in the classroom. Maybe because we were so close already.”

 

“Really?” he grasps at his own ring in turn. “Then . . . then maybe they’re useful.”

 

“Let’s keep the others,” she says. “Wait until we find a team. And then we can let them have the rings, too. They could be super useful.”

 

“Someday,” he says. “But for now . . .”

 

“For now, they’re for us,” she says. She adds to it with a chuckle. “Y’know, I thought rings were meant for engagements and weddings. Not something like this.”

 

“They’re inconspicuous under gloves,” he says. “Probably why.”

 

“Well,” she says, sliding her fingers under his chin and bringing his face up to meet hers, “I like it. And I like you, Miro. You know that.”

 

He can feel his face go warm. “I l-like you too, Ji Yeong. Always.”

 

She chuckles, and lets him go. “Then that’s that, for now. And thank god nobody died over them.”

 

“Yet.”

 

Ji Yeong laughs, smile wide and hair flying back, tresses of red-orange that fall over her shoulders in cascades. “Oh, Miroslav,” she says, still smiling, “People will always die over stuff like this. What matters is the people who are living.”


End file.
